(RALEIGH) Attorney General Josh Stein today filed a complaint to seek an injunction to prevent new Trump administration rules that will drastically change access to contraceptive coverage. Specifically, these rules will allow any employer or health insurer with religious objections to opt out of the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive coverage requirement.

“I believe that women, not their employers, should make their own birth control decisions,” said Attorney General Josh Stein. “These new rules to limit women's access to contraception are unlawful, and I will fight to stop them.”

Almost 2 million women in North Carolina have benefited from the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive coverage requirement. More than 70 percent of North Carolina women aged 18-49 use contraception, including nearly 80 percent who are at risk of unintended pregnancy. In 2010, public costs for unintended pregnancies in North Carolina were $858.3 million.

The Attorney General’s complaint states that these new rules are illegal, as they violate the Administrative Procedure Act, the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Today’s action against the new rules comes after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld a preliminary injunction against the Trump administration’s interim final rules early this year.

Attorney General Stein is joined in this action by the Attorneys General of California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawai’i, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and the District of Columbia.